


Rubik's

by HolmesianDeduction



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study, Gen, Grantaire - Freeform, Psychology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 15:12:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolmesianDeduction/pseuds/HolmesianDeduction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras has never had much patience for puzzles.  Even Courf's Rubik's cubes, which he leaves around the flat where he or Combeferre could easily stumble over them, go unsolved.  Not because he can't solve them, but because he hasn't the patience for it, and there is work to be done.</p><p>Grantaire, too, is a puzzle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rubik's

             Grantaire is a puzzle.

             Grantaire is a puzzle and Enjolras can't decide who he is exactly half the time.

             There is nothing constant about Grantaire.  Not entirely so, anyway.

             Some days he arrives at the café trouble incarnate, his eyes flickering about and that damned defiant smirk curling his lips.  It’s on those days that Enjolras openly declares him to be unbearable.  Even at his drunkest, he’s mouthy and articulate enough to launch into lengthy, heavily sarcasm-laden criticisms of every word to leave Enjolras’ mouth; even at his most hungover, he can manage a sneer and a well-placed barb that will inevitably spur Enjolras to rise to his bait.  Sometimes he comes in with a bandage or two – evidence of another reckless night out with Bahorel, no doubt, or else he doesn’t show at all, but appears days later with paint in his hair and chafed wrists, and a strangely triumphant smile on his face.

             Other days, however, he might as well be a completely different person.  When he arrives – if he shows his face at the café at all – he quickly finds a corner table apart from the group, and there he stays unless Jehan forces him closer, his eyes distracted and unfocused.  He never says a word on those days; he just sits there with a drink, his too-thin lips pressed together, until his head falls forward onto the table, lank curls spread over his arms.  Sometimes neither he nor Jehan appear for days, with the only sign of life from either of them being the sporadically timed texts that appear on Courfeyrac’s mobile at strange hours of the night.  Inevitably when they reappear, neither of them looks better.  Jehan’s hair is askew, and there are dark circles under his eyes.  Grantaire, if possible, looks even worse than usual, his eyes bruised-looking, the awkward angles of his face made more prominent by the distinct pallor of his skin, and Joly eyes him warily until he sits down at his separate table with the poet at his side.

             Enjolras can't decide which of these two men is Grantaire, and which is an imposter.  Nor, if he’s honest with himself, can he decide which of the two is more intolerable.  The one, while a disruptive force who rankles every nerve in Enjolras’ body, who is a sarcastic, relentless critic of everything Enjolras stands for, is also undeniably capable of pushing him into doing his best work.  The other, however, is a mystery to him apart from the fact that he draws away one of the group’s most innovative minds for days on end and spends the rest of the time sulking about.  He just can’t figure it out, and it’s frustrating – almost as frustrating as Grantaire himself, but on the single occasion that he gave voice to his thoughts, Combeferre merely pressed his lips together and frowned before carefully changing the subject.

             Grantaire, he is forced to admit, is a puzzle that he doesn’t have the time or energy to figure out.


End file.
